that she had to go on foot or that she could not buy a new
hat, a new parasol, a new dress, or any other article of dress, often
enough:

That she could not dress her baby as a sailor, as a lancer, as an
artilleryman of the National Guard, as a Highlander with naked legs and
a cap and feather, in a jacket, in a roundabout, in a velvet sack,
in boots, in trousers: that she could not buy him toys enough, nor
mechanical moving mice and Noah's Arks enough:

That she could not return Madame Deschars or Madame de Fischtaminel
their civilities, a ball, a party, a dinner: nor take a private box at
the theatre, thus avoiding the necessity of sitting cheek by jowl with
men who are either too polite or not enough so, and of calling a cab at
the close of the performance; apropos of which she thus discourses:

"You think it cheaper, but you are mistaken: men are all the same! I
soil my shoes, I spoil my hat, my shawl gets wet and my silk stockings
get muddy. You economize twenty francs by not having a carriage,--no
not twenty, sixteen, for your pay four for the cab--and you lose fifty
francs' worth of dress, besides being wounded in your pride on seeing
a faded bonnet on my head: you don't see why it's faded, but it's those
horrid cabs. I say nothing of the annoyance of being tumbled and jostled
by a crowd of men, for it seems you don't care for that!"

That she could not buy a piano instead of hiring one, nor keep up with
the fashions; (there are some women, she says, who have all the new
styles, but just think what they give in return! She would rather throw
herself out of the window than imitate them! She loves you too much.
Here she sheds tears. She does not understand such women). That she
could not ride in the Champs Elysees, stretched out in her own carriage,
like Madame de Fischtaminel. (There's a woman who understands life: and
who has a well-taught, well-disciplined and very contented husband: his
wife would go through fire and water for him!)

Finally, beaten in a thousand conjugal scenes, beaten by the most
logical arguments (the late logicians Tripier and Merlin were nothing to
her, as the preceding chapter has sufficiently shown you), beaten by the
most tender caresses, by tears, by your own words turned against you,
for under circumstances like these, a woman lies in wait in her house
like a jaguar in the jungle; she does not appear to listen to you, or to
heed you; but if a single word, a wish, a gesture, escapes